How would you like to make a fast ten dollars for twenty minutes work that you can do anywhere? You can become a Website Tester. It may sound a bit on the intimidating side, but you need no technical expertise on what a website is all about but you will need to provide feedback on the website you tested.
Here’s how it works. You register to be a ‘user tester’ at UserTesting.com. They will ask you questions that relate to your age and geographic location to enter you into a database with other user testers. When a website owner decides he needs a user tester to check out his website to determine, among other things, whether or not it is as user friendly as the owner wants it to be, a number of user testers will be pulled from the pool available to run some simple tasks on the website.
If you are selected, you’ll use what is called a screen recorder during the test which will record your keystrokes, mouse movements and comments while you are on the website you are testing. This information assists the website owner in many ways and may provide information that may lead to a number of changes to the website, so the service you’ll be performing as a User Tester will have a great deal of value to the website owner.
The payment is made to your PayPal account following the acceptance of your feedback review by the website owner who contracted UserTesting.com to provide the service. The higher a rating you receive from the details you are able to provide during the screen recording of the test, the more you’ll be used to provide additional user testing.
It is important to note that during the screen recording there will be no video, so you will not be identified. In fact, you will be known as simply a random tester who fit the age demographics of the profile submitted for the test.
There are a few things to keep in mind with this kind of work-at-home opportunity. Depending on your age demographics and geographic information, you may or may not see a lot of work as a User Tester. For example, websites targeted at teenagers will be tested by the age appropriate testers as they will provide the kind of feedback website owners and developers are looking for. With this in mind, there is a growing demand for retirees and seniors to be able to access a variety of websites and online services, so registering for work as a User Tester may be an easy way to make some extra pocket money if you are semi-retired.
Just don’t expect it to be a reliable, regular source of income. Also, if you live in an urban area, you may not be called upon to test websites geared for rural users, either. Regardless of these restrictions, there will still be a number of opportunities to make an extra ten dollars by spending twenty minutes in front of your computer helping improve the internet one website at a time!
Resources:
There are several companies that provide user testing services. Check out Usertesting.com, UsabilityHub.com, FiveSecondTest.com and Usabilla.com. A quick search of the internet for “”website usability testing” will yield even more possibilities.